With the 10-year anniversary of the prison escape at Dannemora this month, how it happened has been described as a complete failure from those inside the walls.

Those failures have led to massive changes within the system.

For months, Richard Matt and David Sweat spent each night outside of their cells as they worked their way through the prison’s underbelly.

What You Need To Know

  • In 2016, the New York State Inspector General issued a report on the 2015 escape from Clinton Correctional Facility, in which she outlined a pattern failures from staff inside the prison

  • Those failures, she said, directly led to the ability of Richard Matt and David Sweat to escape from the maximum-security prison

  • In the years after the escape, state leadership instituted a number of new rules, technology and more to help secure Clinton Correctional

“A bucket is lowered. The person put something in the bucket, and then the bucket is hoisted back up to what was the watchtower and guards in the watchtower,” former New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott said.

It's video that Scott says validates her investigation into the 2015 prison break at Dannemora. Staff there, she believes, were careless, reckless and complacent.

“Those involved forgot that they were in charge of a maximum-security correctional facility,” she added.

In fact, a year later, in 2016, her office issued a scathing 150-page report on the escape — how it happened and everything that allowed it to happen. It brought change almost immediately.

“It required wholesale changes that were implemented not just at that prison, but statewide,” retired state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) Commissioner Anthony Annucci said.

Being DOCCS commissioner at the time, Annucci implemented those changes. They involved everything from management personnel to a vigorous retraining of staff to ensure they are following exact protocols; refreshing understanding that any personal relationship with an inmate will not be tolerated; and introduction of new technology.

“It’s not just important to have very detailed policies, and our directives spanned seven volumes, but you must have a very rigorous system of checks to make sure that staff are doing what they're supposed to,” Annucci said, speaking of Joyce Mitchell and Gene Palmer, who helped Matt and Sweat escape. “Officers are now equipped with body temperature devices to measure whether there is a body inside the cell."

In all, more than $500,000 was spent to upgrade Clinton Correctional Facility, including sensors in the catwalks used by Matt and Sweat during the escape, as well as the now-infamous manhole cover they popped out of outside the prison. That has been permanently cemented over.

As part of staff changes, there is also new protocol on what employees can bring into the facility, as well has how they do it. All items must be in clear bags and eligible items are being inspected before being allowed in.